Thursday Music News

Almost exactly two years after the release of his last album, 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine‘s Sam Beam has announced the details of his next album. Entitled Ghost on Ghost, the 12-track effort will be released on April 16th via Nonesuch. Beam said the Brian Deck-produced set moves away from the “anxious tension” of Iron & Wine’s last two records, and that Ghost “felt like a reward to myself after the way I went about making the last few.” Sample the first taste of the album, the jazzy, six-minute “Lovers’ Revolution”, below and check out the tracklisting and artwork over at Consequence of Sound.

Although he’s hinted that he’ll resuming work under his most famous moniker sooner than later, Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor is still focused on his other band, How To Destroy Angels, who will release their long-in-the-making debut album, Welcome oblivion, on March 5th via Columbia. The 13 (or 15 on vinyl) track set features 9/11 new tracks alongside four previously-released tracks from last year’s An omen EP. The album’s first single, the uncharacteristically accessible “How long?”, is streaming below with a Shynola-directed, post-apocalyptic video. Reznor and company will undertake some degree of touring behind Welcome oblivion, but right now, their only set dates are a pair of debut performances at Coachella 2013. Check out the artwork and tracklisting at Pitchfork.

2012 buzz magnets and recent Song of the Day pickSavages made their North American debut at CMJ last year, but this spring, they’ll tour the U.S. in earnest with a string of dates beginning with a series of shows at SXSW in March before moving out west for Coachella. They’ll be stopping at Neumos on April 16th, so it’s really only your fault if you don’t catch this in a small venue while you still can.

Fresh off the release of her debut full-length, Angel Olsen has set a series of North American dates to promote Half Way Home before heading back to Europe for festval season. Since she’s one of a seeming handful of artists not playing Coachella that weekend, she’ll make a stop at Barboza on April 19th and at The Shakedown in Bellingham the next day.

After releasing their last two albums on Kill Rock Stars, The Thermals have moved to Saddle Creek for the release of their sixth album, Desperate Ground, on April 16th. John Agnello manned the boards for the 10-track effort, which the band described as “scrappy”, “scratchy”, and “tells the (murky) tale of a lone rogue in the night”, which are all things anyone would want to hear about a Thermals album. For those itching for some older material, Sub Pop is reissuing the band’s first three albums on colored vinyl on March 5th. View the artwork and tracklisting over at Pitchfork.